‘Coffin in my bedroom’: Chinese woman returns from work to find home filled with mourners, landlady pays US$1,100 compensation
- Shocked tenant forced to get hotel room after she hurried home from work to find a coffin surrounded by mourners inside her flat
- Landlady claimed funeral switch was in line with local customs but court ruled she must compensate her spooked renter
A Chinese migrant worker in Shanghai was shocked to discover that her landlady had turned her flat into a funeral hall while she was at work.
The tenant, surnamed Wang, received a phone call from the landlady’s daughter asking her to “stay in a hotel for a couple of days” because they needed to use her flat as a mourning hall.
After hurrying home from work, Wang was horrified to discover that the situation was a lot worse than the phone call had indicated – a coffin surrounded by mourning relatives was already in her bedroom.
Wang left immediately for a hotel but she was so spooked by the experience that she terminated the lease and sued her landlady for breach of contract.
The landlady, surnamed Li, argued that the flat Wang rented was the former home of a recently deceased elderly family member and its use for the funeral was a matter of local custom and tradition.
Li also said she had fulfilled her duty by paying for Wang’s hotel and “restoring the flat to how it used to be” after the funeral service.